While I’m stuck here in Texas for a at least another month I thought I’d go through everything I’ve gathered and kept during my 51 years thus far. It’s surprisingly little. Most of it is from the 80s, things I had bought, been awarded, and in one case given to me. The item that was given to me is from the 70s and it was one of my great-grandmothers who have it to me. All of them just collecting dust. Anyway, I went through it and decided to give it away. I have three sons and wanted to divide the stuff up among them. As I’ve mentioned it’s not much, but I’ve kept them because each item has deep meaning to me. To my surprise (and I admit it was a little painful too) they didn’t want any of it. I was asked over and over again why I wanted

It’s so hot that if you toss an ice cube into the air it melts before it hits the ground! OK, so that’s an exaggeration but it’s still entirely too hot. I needed a cold drink and Starbucks has the best iced green tea with raspberry I’ve ever tasted so that’s where I headed. The video has classical music instead of the helmet camera’s mic noise because all you would hear is wind since it is a built-in mic and doesn’t have a lead for in-helmet dialogue. (Plus I like classical music.) The decreasing radius turn in this video is one of my favorites, the one on the other side of the highway is even better but I wasn’t filming then. Anyway, I wanted to post this just for fun.

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I am (unfortunately) back in Texas and it is hotter than hell. It’s not just the heat, it’s the humidity that makes the heat so much worse. It can be just unbearable. Even the wind is hot and breathing that humid air is like drawing an unpleasant steam into your lungs. It’s times like this that riding with gear is extremely difficult. I don’t see many riders out in this kind of heat. On cooler days one can see riders everywhere, but not in this heat. Yesterday I had to ride to town to run errands and the entire time I was out, on both highway and in town, I saw a grand total of two other riders.
Neither had any gear on and I found myself almost envying them because I knew they were getting more air moving around their bodies. Almost envying them. I won’t ride without gear even

Anyone who’s ever lived in an area that gets so hot that you can literally cook food on any metal surface, such as is the case with Texas, knows that violent crime soars in the summer. It just doesn’t cool down. Not even at night. At 4 in the morning it can still be 90 degrees or more. During the day the temperature climbs to triple digits and when you factor in the extreme humidity the heat index, how hot it feels, is unbelievable. It’s like trying to breath hot soup instead of air. Even when there is a breeze, it’s a hot wind, not cool and refreshing.
Well, researchers have now stated the obvious. Hot temperatures make people uncomfortable, irritable, and violent. Factor in a place with a climate that doesn’t vary much, like Texas which I just wrote about here, and it gets even worse because there simply isn’t